Whether it’s too fast or too slow, drivers just can’t seem to get the speed thing right. After one too many on-road run-ins, Motoring writer Matt Kimberley takes furious fingers to keyboard.

To make it clear from the start, there is no black-and-white answer to this question. But it’s relevant whether we like it or not. What is the right speed?

The easiest answer is to say that as long as the conditions are fine, you should be doing the speed limit. But even if you say that, you run into millions of people who apparently don’t agree.

Or at least their driving doesn’t. I’ve long since lost count of the lines of traffic I’ve been stuck behind on a country road, doing 40 km/h in a 60 km/h limit. Frankly, it’s pathetic.

In a lot of circumstances the only possible conclusion in the often complete absence of hazards, junctions, tractors, mud on the road, flood water or anything else like that, is that people are scared to do the speed that the conditions – and their vehicles – allow. These people should not be allowed to drive.

But then at the other end of the scale you have built-up areas. Roads of terraced houses with cars parked all the way along both kerbs, leaving passing room for one car and one car only. If there’s a cyclist, only the narrowest of superminis could even attempt a pass.

These roads are often technically 30 km/h limit zones, but with static cars so close on either side there’s an incredibly tiny margin for error. If a child steps out from a gap… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. In these cases, the speed limit is too fast, so you don’t drive at it.

Or you’d think not, but people do. People use roads like this as rat-runs to try to beat main road traffic, tearing down the narrow lane like their life depends on it.

But the problem is that someone else’s just might. Like the country road dawdlers, these people should not be allowed to drive.

So there’s a middle ground, then. Fast enough where the conditions allow, and slow enough where conditions dictate. There’s a modicum of using your noodle on this one, but even that seems like too much to ask.

You might argue for more tuition, or maybe even advanced driving tuition, but on this one I’d have to disagree. Common sense can’t be taught.

Driving slowly everywhere is definitely not an indication that you’re a safe driver. Driving fast everywhere is like deliberately deciding to crash, only leaving it to chance as to when it happens and how much damage you cause. Most of us, I imagine, touch the relative extremes of dawdling and speeding from time to time.

But there are circumstances, like the two I’ve mentioned, that are completely inexcusable. If you’re frightened of appropriate speed, or if you’re willing to throw it out of the window and risk lives, do the rest of us a favour and take the bus.